There's been a fall out of a private yacht, a fall out of a sixth-story hospital window, and now, a fall down a flight of stairs. Anatoly Gerashchenko is the latest high-profile Russian executive and Putin ally who's met what Insider calls an "accidental or untimely" demise, reportedly tumbling down several flights of stairs Wednesday while on the campus of his former employer. The 72-year-old was visiting the Moscow Aviation Institute, where he served as the university's rector from 2007 until 2015, leaving after 45 years of service, per CNN. He was still offering advisement to the current rector at the time of his death.
The MAI noted on its website that Gerashchenko "died in an accident," and a source tells Russian newspaper Izvestia that he fell "from a great height." The Jerusalem Post notes some of Gerashchenko's achievements, including serving as the author of more than 100 articles and scientific papers and receiving various honors, such as a medal for the first-class Order of Merit for the Fatherland, awarded to citizens for their contributions in various fields. The university, which called his death a "colossal loss," says it will conduct a probe into what happened.
It's starting to become hard to keep track, but Gerashchenko is thought to be the 10th influential Russian executive to have met a mysterious fate, such an alleged suicide or unexplained accident, since the beginning of the year. Six of those deaths have been tied to Russia's energy industry, including the deaths earlier this month of Lukoil Chairman Ravil Maganov, who was the aforementioned fall out of a hospital window in Moscow, and Ivan Pechorin, an aviation director with the Corporation for the Development of the Far East and the Arctic who fell off his private yacht and into the Sea of Japan. (More Russia stories.)
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